The invention concerns a method of dewatering oil mud that occurs on board ships during the processing of heavy, diesel, and lubricating oils and consists of a mixture of water and mineral-oil residue that is intercepted on board and subjected to centrifuging.
"Oil mud" means the mixture of water, oil, and solids that occurs during separation and filtration. The oil muds can either be removed in the harbor by pumping them into waste-disposal ships, which is expensive, or processed on board the original vessel.
A method of treating oil muds that involves collecting all the liquids in a buffer container and subsequently centrifuging them is known from German OS 2 438 602. The centrifugal separation of this mixture of various oils and water is not free of problems in that only relatively low throughputs can be attained and the separated phases are not satisfactorily pure. Since oil mud also contains waste water that in turn includes oil, considerable volumes of a material that can only be considered difficult to separate are involved.
German AS 2 362 665 describes a method of processing large volumes of muddy and oily waste material. The mud is treated at temperatures of 500.degree. to 600.degree. C., requiring a considerable consumption of outside energy. The method is very complicated and is accordingly appropriate only for stationary plants.
Using separate separators to process heavy oil and diesel oil is known from German OS 3 020 501. The resulting oil mud is collected in a mud tank and conveyed through a line to a mud burner. This method also requires considerable energy.